WiZiQ Blog

Find Students and Begin Earning by Teaching with WiZiQ!

Internet technologies allow you to teach learners across the world. However, many teachers find it difficult to build their online teaching business because, despite their capabilities, they do not have the exposure they need to build a student clientele. Wouldn’t it be great if teachers could simply get in touch with learners who need help in a specific area of expertise? This is now a reality through a unique feature from WiZiQ : Learning Requests.

How does this work?

Learners in need of teaching expertise simply request for teachers to contact them. This is what we call a ‘Learning Request’ (LR). They let us know what their needs are and what kind of a teacher they are looking for. For example, a student may request for a teacher who specializes in language instruction. We then post it on the common LR area without disclosing the contact details of the learner. Premium Teachers choose those student LR’s that apply to their areas of instruction. When accepting the LR, instructors then see the contact details of the learner. Such details include contact information such as telephone numbers and/or e-mail address (depending on what method the student prefers to be contacted by. Once this information is available to the teacher, he or she can contact the student. This method makes the process of finding students, much easier and time effective. Still have questions? Below you will find a brief review of this service and a list of common questions and answers for your convenience.

Highlights of our Learning Requests Service for teachers:

Learning Request is simply a request by a student/learner for a teacher who is qualified to instruct them in a specific field of study. Such help could consist of test preparation for a school or competitive exam, professional development education, or English as a second language education. The list goes on. All these requests are carefully verified and followed up on and analyzed by the WiZiQ team. All genuine requests are posted on WiZiQ and can be accessed by teachers who are premium members.

Can Learning Requests really help me?

Learning Requests is a fast, easy and efficient way for teachers to find students/ learners and vice-versa, too. Learners leave their request for various reasons. Sometimes they do so because they do not have time to search for a teacher, and other times they have not been successful finding a teacher on their own. For whatever reason, your chances of obtaining students through WiZiQ’s Learning Requests are high.

Who should use Learning Requests?

Learning Requests are best suited for teachers who are actively looking for a student clientele that can jump start or increase their online teaching careers, or who are simply looking to supplement their existing teaching income further.

When to use Learning Requests?

Teachers should ideally use Learning Requests if they have exhausted their potential contacts and are looking to continue growing their teaching business/ student clientele. Teachers who are struggling to find new students or do not have enough students to reach their career goals also benefit from Learning Requests. Likewise, some teachers who have a greater capacity to teach more students utilize the benefits of Learning Requests.

How to use Learning Requests?

• Go to www.wiziq.com/learning-requests
• Browse through the available Learning Requests - looking for the description, budget and contact details.
• Accept the Learning Requests you feel you are a good fit for.
• You can now view the student/ learner contact details.
• Contact the student. You may prefer to do so via the WiZiQ messaging system so that they can see your profile, if you so wish (be sure to have a completed profile for your potential students to view). Contact us at support@wiziq.com for any help or details.

Does it cost to use Learning Requests?

• To accept a learning request, you will need to have learning request credits in your account.
• You get 15 learning request credits when you upgrade to a Premium Membership on WiZiQ.
• Learning request credits are deducted from your account when you accept a request.
• When you run out of learning request credits, you can buy more – as many or as few as you like.

What if I am already a Premium Member?

For existing premium members, we have already added 15 learning request credits to their account so you can get started right away!

Getting Started: The Next Step>>

To get started, you can do one of the following:

• You can attend one of the upcoming public classes on details about Learning Requests. All your questions will be answered during the class. Go to www.wiziq.com/public/
• Let us know if you have further questions and we will be happy to answer them and assist you further. You can get in touch with us at support@wiziq.com
• Upgrade to Premium (only 49.95 USD per year) to start accepting Learning Requests.

How to Teach and Earn Online Using WiZiQ

WiZiQ enables anyone to teach and learn online through Online Classes, Online Tests, Educational Content, Contact Network and more. WiZiQ also empowers teachers across the world to start or enhance their teaching careers by making money online through its powerful Teach and Earn features.

It would be useful to point out that WiZiQ is not a Teacher/ Tutor/ Expert hiring portal. We do recruit teachers. WiZiQ provides teaching tools for teachers to register, create a public profile and reach students/ learners across the world. We plan to shape WiZiQ to be the only platform you will need for entire gamut of your student/ contact relationship : from teaching online to marketing online to managing online. Already, teachers use WiZiQ to network with teachers and learners, manage their contacts, teach [classes/ tests/ share content] online and receive payments online. Our teaching tools provide teachers with flexibility and customization required to build their own teacher entrepreneur brand. There are three paths [each mutually compatible with others] to get started with WiZiQ's Teach and Earn cycle:

Have students - teach them through WiZiQ's free or low cost teaching tools 

1. Teachers can use WiZiQ's Free Virtual Classroom, Free Online Test Creation Features, Free Educational Content Sharing, Contact Management and many more online teaching tools
2. Teachers can also upgrade to our premium membership at very low cost

Become visible on Internet - encash visibility

1. Teachers can create their personal public business card to showcase their teaching expertise on WiZiQ - gets indexed in Google and features you in search results on WiZiQ
2. They can also conduct free public online classes on WiZiQ to let the prospective students know about their expertise
3. They can create free online tests and upload educational content to help increase their visibility on WiZiQ
4. Once they become visible students can contact them either through their profile [WiZiQ allows learners to send messages to teachers] as well as through Paid Public Online Classes on WiZiQ

Access student learning requests - convert them to your students

1. More about this feature in our upcoming post
2. For now, please just visit http://www.wiziq.com/learning-requests/ to know more

WiZiQ support team helps teachers through the process of teaching and earning online. Write to us at support@wiziq.com to get your customized training delivered to you [and get started with teach and earn on WiZiQ] - free of cost.

Conduct a Paid Online Class (Public) with WiZiQ

Public Online Classes are one of the fastest growing product areas on WiZiQ. More than 200 live online classes were conducted in March and we expect this number to double in April. Teachers conduct public classes for one or all of the following reasons:

• Visibility among learners around the world who can then request teaching services from these teachers
• Getting feedback on their teaching style from teachers and learners
• Contribute to educational content and free learning around the world

"Visibility among learners around the world who can then request teaching services" is one of the major reasons for teachers to build or expand their teaching business online with WiZiQ. One of the best ways to expand your teaching business is to conduct a paid online class. Please take a look at some examples of some of the paid classes that have been/ are going to be conducted on WiZiQ:

• High Intermediate Level ESL: USA Holidays, Traditions & Capitalization
  
• Expected Questions in Mathematics & Tips for Success in IIT-JEE 2009
• Software Outsourcing and Sales : Manual for Managers, Analysts and Consultants

What is a Public Paid Online Class?

• A Public Paid Online Class is listed at www.wiziq.com/public/
• Members from around the world can find out about the class [WiZiQ search or Google]
• Anyone can join this class by saying the class fee
• WiZiQ features this class prominently and hence, will keep 30% of all revenue [sales] of the class for every attendee in the class
• If an attendee/ registrant is already in your contact, then we will keep a nominal comission of 5% [transaction charges at Paypal] [attendee/ registrant needs to be in your contact list before signing up for the paid class]
• After the class is over, and checking the feedback of all attendees, you will be released all the payment

Who can schedule a Public Paid Online Class?

• Anyone who has conducted at least 02 successful free public classes and/ or
• Anyone who has conducted at least 10 private classes and/ or
• Someone who undergoes an online training on WiZiQ through one of our user training consultants
• Currently, we only allow teachers from countries supported by Paypal to schedule an online paid class

How to Schedule a Public Paid Online Class :

1. Drop us an email at support@wiziq.com requesting access to create paid public classes.
2. After we give you the access, all you need to do is Join/ Sign In with WiZiQ and click on Schedule a Class. 
3. You need to then select Public in Privacy Option and enter the price per attendee.
4. Click on "Schedule the Class" button.
5. That's it, we will approve the class within a few hours and it would be listed at www.wiziq.com/public/
6. To check, how many attendees joined your paid class, just go back to the class page after signing in with WiZiQ.

How to Schedule a Public Free Online Class:

• Follow the step 2 and 3
• Do not enter the price per attendee in the public class [if you don't see the option to enter the price, then you are not allowed to conduct paid online classes for now - request permission]
• Click on "Schedule the Class" button.
• That's it, we will approve the class within a few hours and it would be listed at www.wiziq.com/public/
• To check, how many attendees joined your paid class, just go back to the class page after signing in with WiZiQ.

For more, please drop us an email at support@wiziq.com or comment on this post.

Is WiZiQ Really Free?

Even before we launched the WiZiQ premium service, we were asked "Is WiZiQ Really Free?"

Well the simple response is : "Yes, it is." All the basic features of WiZiQ are free of cost : you can conduct classes with your students in the virtual classroom for free, you can create tests for free, you can invite people for free and you can upload your documents for free. In fact many reputed teachers are using the free service of WiZiQ for their online teaching. If thats the case what is the premium service? Our premium service provides you with some additional features. Here is a quick comparison of free [yes, it is free - no need to submit credit card or Paypal details] and premium membership:

• Hold sessions with up to 500 members in the Virtual Classroom with Premium Membership (the free version supports only 50 members)
• Access advanced features in the Virtual Classroom like Private Chat with Premium Membership
• Brand the Virtual Classroom with your organizations name with Premium Membership
• Get guaranteed support in 1 business day with Premium Membership
• Keep session recordings hosted with WiZiQ till the premium membership expires (session recordings are only available for 30 days with the free version)
• Display personal contact info such as a phone number on their profile (with the free version, contact can only be made through WiZiQ)
• Collect and keep track of payments from your contacts with Premium Membership
• Enjoy ad-free browsing with Premium Membership
• Get your class ready before it starts
• Send unlimited invites and messages from WiZiQ [within WiZiQ or to people whose email addresses you know] (there is a limit of 05 on invites, sharing and message sending in free membership)
• Finally, you can download your session recordings with Premium Membership

Free membership is a great way to start exploring WiZiQ and as discussed above, you might not ever need to upgrade to Premium Account. We respond to all emails [from free or paid members] and we would be happy to arrange personalized trainings for all members [free or paid]. Further, our key features : session embeds, test creation, basic virtual classroom and document sharing - are all free. We will add the features to both free and paid memberships. If you are not already a teacher on WiZiQ, you can become one by signing up on WiZiQ. For any questions or comments, please make a comment to this post and we will be in touch with you.

How to Make Money on the Internet - Seriously :-)

Rajil Kapoor has shared a nice list to make money online using web-based platforms. Raj does a great job explaining the underlying capabilities of these services, which actually work if you want to earn money online utilizing whatever free time you have or even if you want to seriously work on it as a project. About WiZiQ, Raj says:

"Not only do they help you connect with students but they also provide the tools for delivering online lessons - a full interactive chat with blackboard and even video."

Raj opines that empowering teachers to build their own business works better than tutoring providers as teachers can build their own brand instead of helping build the brand of a service provider:

"This brings efficiency (e.g. lower costs), disintermediation of brands (e.g. individual tutors build their brands vs brands like Sylvan or Kaplan), and leverage/scalability to all participants."

We cannot agree more Raj, and thank you for including WiZiQ in your fabulous list :-)

 

Jagdeep Singh Pannu

WiZiQ Launches Premium Service

WiZiQ announced the much-awaited premium service today. The premium offering gives teachers greater control over the Virtual Classroom and enables them to market, advertise, and manage their teaching business more effectively.

See full press release: WiZiQ Goes Premium

 WiZiQ’s premium service is available at an annual price of $49.95. To get started, both--teachers and students can sign up at http://www.wiziq.com/Register.aspx. If you are already a member, you can simply upgrade after logging in to your dashboard.